Other employment at Dale consisted largely of serving the industrial and agricultural workers. In 1846 the Carpenter’s Arms pub was run by Elizabeth
Hollingworth; two other members of the same family were John, a wheelwright, and Mary, a shopkeeper. There was also a shop at the Flourish on the main Spondon to Ilkeston road, run by William Wheatley, a name dating back to the canons: the Wheatley family lived in Abbey House till 1910. An old friend of ours, Peter Wheatley, recalls his grandfather saying that he had six brothers, who used to sleep in the front bedroom, and three sisters, who slept in the back bedroom, the cottage being a two-up, two-down in those days; Mum and Dad slept in chairs downstairs.  

Also recorded in the mid-19th century are William Buckland, a miller based at Baldock Mill, Joseph Grundy, a tailor, Joseph Hallam, a gamekeeper, Zacch. Hartshorn, a shoemaker, John Potter, a cornmiller, Stephen Shepperson, a shopkeeper near the Cat & Fiddle, Chas. Smith, a shoemaker, Stephen Sneap, a carpenter at the Cat & Fiddle, Sarah Spencer, victualler at the  Stanhope Arms (which was the name of the pub at the Flourish) and William Hollingworth, Stevens, Winrow.

Listed in 1857 are Vincent Bacon, a sawyer at the Cat and Fiddle, John Bloor, shopkeeper, Selina Bloor, infant schoolmistress, John Canner, corn miller at Baldock Mill, Joshua Derbyshire, shopkeeper and brickmaker at Dale Moor, William Gallimore, blacksmith at the Cat and Fiddle, William Grundy, tailor, John Hollingworth, victualler and wheelwright at the Carpenter’s Arms, Robert Richardson, shoemaker and shopkeeper, and Sarah Spencer again.

Employment in the 20th century seems to have been more varied, and sometimes a little haphazard. Take, for instance, the story of Harvey Cross. His granddad was the manager at the pit, his father its first deputy, a Mr Churchill its second (he lived on No Man’s Lane). At one stage, though, Harvey’s father was a pork butcher in Smalley, then came to Dale Moor, and his granddad used to be a coach driver for Lord at Eastwood. Harvey himself left school at 13 and worked for Fred Edwards on Saturday nights as a bus conductor; later that same employment, from 7.30 am to 7 pm, earned him 2/6d per week. After that, Harvey delivered bread for the Co-op, earning 13/5d per week; a year later he went back to the grocery for 10/-, and then he transferred to a branch at Cotmanhay, some five miles away; he walked to work.  

In Victorian times, poverty was a fearful thing: you might end up in the workhouse. I was born in 1945 and remember people talking in hushed tones and fear of such a fate. Dale had a workhouse, now long disappeared; it was run by the church, and stood on a dip in the land below Sandiacre Lodge Farm, near the top end of Hixons Lane. There were almshouses in Stanton, and some in Ilkeston called the Smedleys Alms Houses, which is presumably some connection with the Dale Smedley family. Poor law records for the period 1680 to 1848 can be found at www.londonfhc.org.